This Calls for a Truce
by ChaosKirin
Summary: Rachel and Santana probably won't ever get along, but they have more in common than they like to admit. All Santana wants to do is bring Rachel down a peg. There's nothing wrong with that!


Seriously? It looked like someone kicked her puppy. Off a bridge. Into a molten pit of lava.

Okay, I didn't _like _Rachel Berry. Normally, she had this drive-me-crazy delusion that she was a shining beacon of a star and that everyone looked to her because she happened to think she was brighter and better than everyone else. I mean, I'll admit that I'm a little self-centered and all, but she's got this entitlement complex that makes me look like a saint. Or, rather, she _had_ an entitlement complex. Now McKinley's brilliant little star had become a soul-sucking black hole of depression and angst.

She was sitting alone at a lunch table, which was strange. Usually she'd impose herself on someone else and engage them in conversation faster than they could get up and leave. She'd done it to me way more times than I cared to remember. Closing my eyes, I sighed, because I was about to do something that I really _hoped _wouldn't earn me negative status with the Cheerios. I already had a plan in place, but people around here can be cruel, and I know _that_ because I can be one of the cruelest.

Slamming some sheet music down on the table next to Rachel, I sat down. "Listen, Gnome. We're going to pretend we're talking about Glee. You say one word to anyone and I'll—"

"You'll what, Santana? Make my life worse?"

I pointed to a bridge in the arrangement I'd laid out in front of us on the table. Nothing special, really, just a lot of notes. But I hoped other people thought we were talking very intently about them. "First of all, I'm not sorry." I looked up at her to gauge her reaction to that, trying to keep my expression passive. I couldn't help the slight lip-curl that accompanied that. "I'm going to tell you why I did it."

The revulsion was mutual. I could see it in her eyes. That kind of felt good, knowing I could still do that to a person, but it wasn't quite as satisfying as I wanted it to be. I felt bad for her a little. Mostly I felt bad because she was kind of ruining Glee Club for me and the others, because she was refusing to sing and therefore drawing everyone's attention _to her _instead of to task. I shouldn't have had to tell her to snap out of it, because this was her realm. But no one else was going to do it. No one else cared enough, and besides, I was partly responsible.

She turned up her chin, looking down her nose at me. "Did what? Ruin my life?"

"Oh, stop that." I paused, looking back to the sheet music. She seemed to understand the gesture, as she did the same a moment later. "You realize you've been making my life hell for weeks?"

She didn't answer, so I continued.

"Don't you think I could have helped Kurt? I mean, you shut me out of your little meeting—"

"I already _told_ you," she replied haughtily. "It was for Glee Girls with boyfriends on the football team."

I pointed to a random coda. The proximity to her was maddening. I could reach over and tear out all her dwarf hair and feed it to her before anyone could stop me. I could make her cry.

Clenching my jaw, I went on. "So _anyway,_ as I was saying. You left me out of your meeting, and you didn't even stop to think that I'm the second most promiscuous girl _in this school _besides Britt. If you wanted Karofsky to lay off Kurt, all you had to do was ask me. I could have had him eating out of my hand in a day. If I told that boy to jump, he'd ask how high."

Rachel rolled her eyes.

"You ... don't think you make my life hard, too?" I hadn't meant to say it, but there it was, out in the open, and now she was looking at me with that deer-in-headlights surprised expression. It turned offended rather quickly, though.

"Sure, Santana. How many times did you Slushee me before you joined Glee Club?" She started dramatically counting off a fake tally on her fingers, and it was my turn to roll my eyes.

I didn't have a lot of friends. I sort of ensured that me and Quinn would never get along again when I decked her at the beginning of the year, but she had that coming. I bet she didn't even know how hard it was to be on the bottom of a pile of girls, some of whom are much heavier than you and have much bonier knees. The other girls on the team were afraid of me. Britt was even angry at me in her own way, which I never expected. All the guys I dated knew that it was just a meaningless fling.

Forcing a smile, I said, "You push me, I'm going to push back."

She did that thing where she fluttered her hands around her face in exasperation. "Just say what you want to say."

"I did it because it was the only way I could get through to you." I started. "You don't even realize that you're a bigger bully than me – or anyone who gave you a Slushee facial ever was. At least we meant it. You're so high on your pedestal that you ... you don't even realize how much you hurt people. Hurt _me. _I'm tired of it, Rachel. You... feel like you're entitled to all these solos in Glee and me and Britt and Quinn... We all have good voices, too—"

"I was born for this. This is my destin—"

"Stop it. Right there. That's what has me so... mad at you that I just want to take this fork..." I held up her fork and gave her my best crazy-eyes expression, "And jam it into your eye."

She backed up an inch. "Please don't."

Somewhere along the line, the conversation had become very obviously not about music. I wondered if the other Cheerios were staring at me now. I tried not to look as I slammed the fork back down on the table. If they asked, I'd just tell them that I was giving Berry the earful she deserved, since she did, after all, look terrified. "Stop the entitlement complex."

Cowed, she looked down at the sheet music again. "You scare me. So I figure if I stay one step ahead of you, then I'll... come out ahead." She ran her fingers through her hair and looked over at me. At this point, I didn't care what anyone else was thinking, since it felt better to air out all this crap before regionals. "I don't hate you. I mean, you did amazing in sectionals. I really mean that."

"I know," I responded. Though it felt nice to hear it from her.

"But I feel like you hate me."

Did I? "I don't hate you. But you think you're better than everyone else in a way that doesn't even _compare_ with how think I'm better than everyone else."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Listen. I'm a cheerleader. I'm hot. I'm popular. So yeah, I feel pretty good about myself. Then you come along and look down at me and you're in a whole different category of crazy. Confidence is one thing. Actually believing that the rest of the world is below you..." I closed the sheet music and picked it up. As far as I'm concerned, the conversation was done. "I told you why I did it. I wanted you to hurt long enough to fall down to our level. Welcome to High School, Berry. Kinda sucks, doesn't it?"

She didn't say anything as I walked away.


End file.
